John Romaniello–aka Roman–is a well-known fitness coach and author whose articles have appeared in some of the most widely-read online and print media health publications in the U.S. He’s been a force in the fitness industry for the last ten years, serving as a strength coach for people from all walks of life and of all athletic abilities. Roman says he’s basically a ‘normal’ guy who growing up, always struggled with his weight–in particular, getting lean. He learned a lot through his struggles, found a solution and is sharing some of that knowledge with us in his latest work, Final Phase Fat Loss.

For anyone who has tried to shed fat before, the inevitable ‘stop point’ has got to be one of the most frustrating things imaginable. You’re tooling along losing fat and all is well, but then suddenly your progress screeches to a halt–regardless of what you do–leaving you discouraged and annoyed.

This is one of the first topics that Roman tackles in Final Phase Fat Loss 2.0, providing a great discussion about how we’re genetically built to store fat. The more fat we lose, the harder the body fights to hang on to it, just in case we run into a food shortage or famine. This is really the basic premise of Final Phase–how to get past that ‘fat-loss plateau’ and get lean.

It’s a basic universal truth that in order to lose weight (fat) you have to burn more calories than you consume. Unfortunately, when it comes to shedding unwanted fat, it’s a lot more complex than that. This is the basis of the next several chapters, where Roman talks about the role hormones play in regulating the body’s metabolic systems. In particular, he focuses on the hormones that are primarily responsible for fat storage and fat burning functions. These chapters present a lot of great background information about how our bodies operate.

With the basics out of the way, Roman then launches into his fat loss methodology. Here, he explains the concepts behind his fat loss strategies. What he’s done is design a multi-pronged system that incorporates a variety of different training styles and approaches, all for the purpose of keeping the body guessing, and in the process, avoiding the dreaded fat loss plateaus. He hasn’t just thrown together a bunch of different training styles though–he’s selected each one specifically for its ability to essentially bypass our genetic programming to store fat so you can get lean.

In the following sections Roman discusses the various training modalities he incorporates into his system. The training modalities he favors include Dynamic Training, Lactic Acid Training, Density-Based Training and Strength-Based Training. None of these are the traditional training techniques you see most guys using at gyms every day.

Roman’s belief is that the reason most fat loss strategies fail is that they’re pretty much based on a single training approach that the body quickly adapts to, halting the progress along the way. By combining multiple modalities and regularly switching among them, the body never has a chance to adapt to any single one, meaning that the fat loss plateau can be avoided all together.

Roman explains his Final Phase training techniques in the following chapters, providing handy charts so you can implement the system yourself. The way he’s laid it out makes it really easy to understand and follow, which is something I like. I’ve seen plenty of great programs that were really based on some solid theories–but when it came down to implementation, the instructions were so complex you’d need a PhD to follow them. After the workouts, Roman addresses cardio. Like his other modalities, his approach to cardio is based on variety and keeping things mixed up so the body doesn’t get comfortable.

Part 7 of Final Phase is focused on nutrition. This is a pretty basic section with Roman providing some simple formulas to help you approximate the number of calories you should be consuming each day. He also provides some pointers and several handy charts to help you on your way. The last section is dedicated to supplementation. He makes a few recommendations about supplements he likes to use but really focuses on using a particular brand, which he sells through his website rather than just providing general information about what’s good and what’s not so good.

What’s New About FPFL 2.0 vs. the Original?

There are 12 new workouts with expanded training explanations which include guidelines for warm ups and soft tissue work.

The diet and supplement section has been beefed up.

New exercises have been added to the exercise library.

There is also some new info on body fat testing and a huge FAQ section that helps you modify the program if you don’t have gym access.